Genuine Question - Why is amateur radio still popular ?

Popular Hardback

Genuine Question - Why is amateur radio still popular ?

Given that we can chat with random strangers at great distances over the internet, what has amateur radio got to offer ?

Is it purely for the love of the technology ?

pixbyjohn

For me it is the love of the hobby which I started with around 1979 on 27MHz and then progressed with the theory and morse exams to gain my experimenters licence. It was before Internet and Mobile technology so it was an exciting hobby for me and many others. I still use CW and also digimodes as well as SSB. I suppose the fact that you are never certain to make contacts as reliably as on the internet or a mobile phone makes it a challenge and all the more enjoyable when you do have a qso. Also the fact that you can experiment with antennas and homebru equipment makes it all the more interesting, for me anyway. Before the days of 27 MHz most experimenters had some background in electronics or as ships radio officers etc. so their expertise in building transceivers and ancillary equipment gave them a great interest in communications.
I use my radios more in the winter evenings than in the summer and I still enjoy a good ragchew in whatever mode I am using at the time.
Cheers

Popular Hardback

Thanks John, for some strange reason I stumbled across amateur radio and I'm drawn to Morse.

It feels like a cross between nostalgic, self sufficient and technological.

For some reason, voice wouldn't really do it for me.

How possible is it for a licensed amateur to economically build their own set up to communicate world wide in Morse ?

What type and size of antenna would be needed ? (I assume this would be the most difficult bit)

How far would a solar powered system be able to broadcast ?

Where should I start learning more ?

martinedwards

I compare Amateur radio to fishing

you can go to pretty much any garage or corner shop and buy fish fingers.

or you can get a rod and go fly fishing for trout.

yes, I can log onto any of the many forums I use and communicate with like minded folk all over the world, but I send up a call on the radio..... like I'm doing between typing posts here (20m morse), and sometimes theres a bite..... be it a relatively local German DL9MCO, Geri from Munich, who answered my last call, or maybe its a little more exotic.... like the day I THOUGHT the call prefix was _ _ .. ,which is M I same as my own Northern Ireland call, but after several tries it dawned on me that it was _ _ .. which is Z. it was only flippin New Zealand!

THAT's what makes it interesting!

Of course theres also 2m FM for local chit chat through the repeaters, and a million other digital modes, radio teletype, Slow Scan TV and all sosrts of crazy shenanigans.

build your own QRP (low power) kit for (first google result) $30 plus post.

add a morse key.... £10

and a receiver....... Under £100 for a frg7

antenna?

with QRP you need all the help you can get, but on a budget, a G5RV is hard to beat to cover several bands, or a simple wire dipole for single bands, and pretty stealthy too......

now, as your in Eire, there is only one level of licence rather than the 3 teir system in the UK.

this means that from the day you get your licence you can run max power with any frequency you like within the legal bands.

I'd reccomend you do like I did and start with a vintage rig like a Yaesu FT101.

Mine cost £140 delivered from a bloke on a forum. 100w max output, and good for morse and normal talk on SSB or am.

since October I've contacted 91 countries, with 2322 logged contacts, 2/3 of which were morse.

you CAN do ham radio for very little money compared to other hobbies (like golf for instance) with the added advantage that you don't have to dress like a pimp from a 70 Blacksploitation film!

watty

Amateur radio isn't popular. It's very much a Niche. I think it's seriously in decline.

In Ireland a tiny number of young people getting involved.

There are dozens of different aspects to Amateur Radio and unfortunately Comreg unilaterally decided we are not Wireless Experimenters. For many people it is just glorified CB and Echo Link (mostly chatting over Internet) is pointless as Skype is better. IRLP is nearly pointless.

We have mobile phones too, not just Internet. If the hobby entirely degenerates to purely Echo Link, IRLP, D-Star, Competitions and bought rigs then it really is just an elitist CB + Internet hobby.

Learn to solder, program, design aerials (No one should be BUYING a G5RV and most are just badly rigged dipoles and not real G5RV which is a compromise not much better than inverted L).

Keep learning about Radio, Propagation, Electronics, Aerials, Programming, Metalwork, woodwork, Soldering etc. The study for exam should only be the start.

Amateur Radio isn't one hobby, it's many:

• Ragchewers on 80m or Repeaters
• Stamp Collectors (Competitions, Squares, countries worked etc)
• 137KHz & 480KHz experimenters
• VLF experimenters
• VHF/UHF DX with big yagis
• Moon Bounce
• Below the noise low power very slow signalling
• New Digital Modes.
• Design / program SDR
• Designing & Testing new types of transmitter (Polar amps)
• Direct modulation in SW of DDS
• HF Aerial experiments
• Aerial Matching unit (ATU) experiments & building
• VHF/UHF aerial experimenting/building
• Microwave systems and "plumbing" Etc ...
• Manpack Mobile
• QRP operation on Data and Voice (SSB, DRM etc)
• Restoring (or replicating) and operating vintage valve gear (even on AM).
• Tracing, documenting & reporting manmade illegal interference to Broadcast and Ham bands.
• Amateur TV (SSTV, AM/SSB, FM, Digital) 80m to Microwave depending on Mode.
• Nostalgia Morse/CW
• Nostalgia RTTY
• Modern Digital Modes

I got my GI8JTR licence in 1972 and was a founder member of Jordanstown Poly Radio Club as well as 1st secretary. A lot of members doing Electronics or Marine Radio. The hobby was starting to decline then.

martinsvi

I'm preparing for the exam and I want to get into amateur radio - first of all because of the passion for the technology. Ultimate goal would be to learn how to make low-power radio controlled devices which would then open up gates to robotics... (I'm a software engineer btw)

but for now I just want to get my licence and chat with some random people and just get my head around radio, how it works and what can be achieved.

I don't like the comparison to online chatrooms and forums. I want to believe that radio, especially voice communications give some level of personality and people behave differently than how they behave when they are completely anonymous hiding behind a username that can be obtained by just pressing a few buttons (rather than taking an exam)

also with skype - try getting in touch with someone in Japan to ask what's the weather like or have they fixed their Power plants and is it safe to go there now? you'll get nowhere, people don't answer to strangers, it's a completely different world ..

Popular Hardback

Thank you for all the advice. Very interesting reading.

Lots to think about and keep my mind busy.

An avenue I'd like to explore is home made low powered 'off grid' Morse systems and seeing how far they can transmit ? (Might be the future that preserves amateur radio ?)

Would a good sequence be :

1. Study for and obtain licence
2. Learn Morse
3. Buy second hand shop bought equipment to learn the ropes
4. Start building own equipment

martinsvi

Popular Hardback wrote: »

Would a good sequence be :

1. Study for and obtain licence
2. Learn Morse
3. Buy second hand shop bought equipment to learn the ropes
4. Start building own equipment

I don't see how you can do it in any other way... licence comes first, I guess when or how you learn Morse is up to you.
then once you have the licence, you can buy an equipment, you will need it to test if whatever you're building works, and if works - how well etc.

watty

There is no requirement or need for Morse unless you want it for the nostalgic fun.

You can build receivers before a licence. You can also quite legally build the transmitter (leave out the power amplifier, which is trivial compared to a Superhet receiver) etc before having a licence.

Also no need for a licence to experiment with aerials, Aerial matching ("ATU" etc), SDR, digital modes (between sound cards or receive and decode others).

Morse can be learnt at any stage or never. Even in 1950s till abolished as a condition many people only learned Morse to get a full Class A licence and then never used it. Morse is only needed if you are going to use it with other like minded operators (a minority of Amateur usage since 1960s)

The only thing a licence is needed for is to actually transmit. All the other aspects can be done any time.

martinedwards

watty wrote: »

There is no requirement or need for Morse unless you want it for the nostalgic fun.

I respectfully disagree.

there is a HUGE morse community world wide. I can easily go a month at a time without plugging my mic into the radio.

a scan around poretty much any band as the conditions are dieling off will see the Phone sections in silence and the dotty end still active as the CW sigs still get through thet little bit longer.

watty

Of course there are a lot of CW operators. But the FACTS are that since the 1960s it's been an ever smaller proportion of licence holders that regularly use CW.

PSK also can be heard (only 1W to 5W needed when 500W needed for voice) when there is no "phone".

Obviously the people keen on CW use it by definition. Don't mistake your own usage or being able to hear CW as an indication of what percentage of licence holders use it.

CW does have the advantage that almost no equipment is needed (A CW only transmitter is trivial) and QRP is as good range as QRO on voice. But actual hard figures show it's a minority interest in a declining hobby. Removing the licence requirement hasn't made much difference as most people didn't use CW anyway once qualified. If anything the "nostalgia" value means that there is little change in the proportion of new licencees using CW.

I'm not pooh poohing CW, it's just not integral to the hobby for most people and hasn't been for 60 years.

Popular Hardback

Thanks for all the advice everyone, you've all been very helpful.

Lots to consider. Certainly much more to this hobby than I imagined, and many avenues to consider.

From an outside perspective, I'm not all that concerned about the decline in the number of people taking it up as a hobby, I think it still stands on its own merits.

Enjoy !

martinsvi

this came up today, it's a cartoon that in a way - answers the topic:

http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/abXPOdO_700b.jpg

Popular Hardback

In the spirit of CW, I came across this nice concise summary :

On the American FCC the following question is on the licence test

Q. What is the purpose of amateur radio.

A. To increase the number of trained radio operators and electronics experts, and improve international goodwill.

Popular Hardback

I came across one of Watty's posts on the getting started forum

I think it's very applicable to this thread.

Thank you Watty.

I'm going to start out with a lot of listening and then maybe a bit of CB first and build my knowledge up slowly. You have to learn to walk properly before you can run.

Watty wrote:

It's a very very broad hobby.

Listening:
MW & SW Broadcast, Offshore Marine, Amateur and Aeronuatical: A "world band" radio with AM and SSB Connect to PC via Ear out and Line in for RTTY, Morse, PSK31, SSTV and WEFAX reception.

Inshore Marine/Coastguards, Aircraft, Amateur Repeaters, Services (see charter), TV sound: VHF /UHF FM 50Mhz to 900MHz at least, AM 110MHz to 137MHz. A basic Scanner Connect to PC via Earphone and Line in for Weather Maps.

Advanced Listening:
Ship and aircraft transponder and passive radar receiving systems

Licence Free Transmitting
PMR446 walkie Talkies. No mods and only internal aerial

CB CE /ETSI marked with 1W AM and 4W FM and/or SSB. Any non directional aerial you like from rubber duck, car mag mount to "homebase" 21' whip.
Also Licence free are video Senders, WiFi, iTrip etc as long as CE marked and Comreg approved.

Licenced Transmission: (Wireless Experimenter Licence, exam required.)
Also known as Radio Amateur and Ham.
Various frequencies from 137kHz to over 20GHz.
Powers from 1W to 400W.
Almost any kind of aerial.
Allowed to build transmitters.
Google ARRL, RSGB and IRTS.

It's great you can start out a good worldband radio and connect it to you PC for RTTY, Morse, PSK31, SSTV and WEFAX. That alone will keep me busy learning about all those formats for a long time yet ! :

MW & SW Broadcast, Offshore Marine, Amateur and Aeronuatical: A "world band" radio with AM and SSB Connect to PC via Ear out and Line in for RTTY, Morse, PSK31, SSTV and WEFAX reception.

Any recommendations for a good second hand worldband radio / receiver ?

Would a Sony 7600 be a good choice ? Any others worth looking at as well ?

Can you build your own world band receiver, thereby learning two hobbies at once ?

Or would you be better starting with building a more basic radio ?

watty

To start with build Tried & Tested Designs.
1) Make a basic LW/MW set
2) Make a basic VHF-FM set
3) Add SW bands as desired to 1
4) Add 27MHz 50MHz, 70Mhz and 145MHz to 2.
5) Get a Softrock kit and built

zenno

One day it will come in very handy.

A hurricane strikes. Winter storms take down power lines. Terrorists detonate a bomb in a crowded city. Disasters – both natural and man-made occur with frightening frequency. Reality: We take communications for granted. In the event of an emergency, cell phones and Internet can go down. Do you have the gear to be prepared?

watty

Oh yes. Also solar panel charger for portable radios and Generator for Mains & 12V charging of higher power fixed Radio.

Additional wire and mobile military aerials/masts to erect new emergency HF aerials.

I did have a 2 way satellite link for a while, now Receive Only.

martinsvi

well to be honest - if disaster strikes - my first worry would be staying warm, having water and food. I don't see how having a chance to chat with someone would help in any way. It is my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that government really doesn't rely on hams as information distributors. No one does.

So the only thing it's good for - I can call someone and ask them to google something for me or give me the news. But that is sort of secondary. If you really want to be prepared for disasters, make sure you have bottled water, cans of food, those little gas cookers used for camping trips, and a generator.

since I live in a rented house, I can't have all that storage, I'm basically one power cut away from freezing to death in a rough winter day...

Popular Hardback

zenno wrote: »

One day it will come in very handy.

A hurricane strikes. Winter storms take down power lines. Terrorists detonate a bomb in a crowded city. Disasters – both natural and man-made occur with frightening frequency. Reality: We take communications for granted. In the event of an emergency, cell phones and Internet can go down. Do you have the gear to be prepared?

Don't forget some sort of Faraday cage (e.g. domestic microwave) to protect your equipment against the WMD of the future, the EMP.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/future-weapons-emp-bomb.htm

martinsvi wrote: »

well to be honest - if disaster strikes - my first worry would be staying warm, having water and food. I don't see how having a chance to chat with someone would help in any way. It is my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that government really doesn't rely on hams as information distributors. No one does.

So the only thing it's good for - I can call someone and ask them to google something for me or give me the news. But that is sort of secondary. If you really want to be prepared for disasters, make sure you have bottled water, cans of food, those little gas cookers used for camping trips, and a generator.

since I live in a rented house, I can't have all that storage, I'm basically one power cut away from freezing to death in a rough winter day...

In Ireland, the chances of ever needing it are reasonably remote, but it would seem to me there are plenty parts of the world where amateur radio has and can be been used to help restore normality and efficiently direct assistance to where it is actually required most ? The recent tsunami's, storms, and earthquakes in other countries, particularly the developing world or more remote areas, and even the USA, being a prime examples. Often with power and phone lines down, the only comms left working for the first few days or weeks is amateur radio. In my opinion, no such community should ever be without at least one amateur radio station.

'Mammy' may not always be there to feed us.

Also even when standard comms are working, I would have thought that radio comms are vastly superior for coordinating and simultaneously keeping 2 way informed large teams of people for any large event, rather than going over and back and over and back with hundreds of individual calls and messages.

Certainly, very few people need to have an amateur radio 'just in case' but in my opinion there's certainly no harm in any community as a whole preserving and maintaining the overall ability, knowledge, and capability of quickly being self sufficient and maintaining some sort of normality and civility for as long as needs be.

Rare as it is, the requirement for 'Off grid' living, can, has, and will happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6PCL697bJQ

watty

Hams were important in the New Orleans hurricane/flood (it inexplicably took nearly a week for Military).

Also Haiti more recently.

Also the Tsunami in Asia.

If there is some kind of major disaster here in Ireland, AREN will be needed as Government / Military resources for any such scenario are nearly non-existent.
Possibilities are Snow, Hurricane, Flooding, Terrorism and Accidents. A major Aircraft accident with fully fuelled plane crashing into vital infrastructure in Dublin could knock out most of the Internet, Mobile and Fixed Phone Networks in Ireland. We are very centralised.

Then there are slower & less likely disasters like World Epidemics, World Economy Collapse etc.

The point is that though a major "Bad Event" is less likely in Ireland it's harder to evaluate what it might be and even more frequent likely weather issues we are woefully unprepared and under resourced.

We do have AREN.

I knew US people staying in Limerick. They had the entire space under the stairs full of tinned goods! I hope we never meet what ever it was they were scared of.

I lived in N.I. during the more major UWC Strike in 1970s. A week with no electricity and cooking (ever more limited food) outdoors 24x7 wasn't that much fun. I also am old enough to remember the "big snow" (1963?) and only having home made sodabread and tinned milk toward the end. Nothing was running and the shops (that you could with difficulty walk to or go on Milk lorry) ran out. Our Neighbour ran a Milk Lorry and amazingly he had chains and could keep going. But the Wholesale trucks couldn't get through to his fridges.

Ireland has virtually no excess Electricity Production. Coal, Oil and Gas Deliveries can easily be disrupted and our Communications / Broadcast / Telecoms infrastructure has very little redundancy and very centralised. Stupidly RTE closed down and decommissioned the 3 MW Transmitter sites. Invaluable and far more robust than their VHF-FM network (the DAB is a sick joke). The LW is one site and far too many Car Radios, Portables and HiFi have MW but no LW.

There will be a day when the Bean Counters that have closed MW sites across Europe on Spurious cost grounds will be in trouble. Many DAB sets can only run on Batteries 8 hours or less (coverage even in UK is rubbish compared to VHF-FM and only AM gives full coverage). 400+ hours on some 1950s VALVE battery sets and more than 200 hours on many modern AM/FM Radios. Feeding all the FM or DAB sites with Electricity and Content is a bigger problem than MW & LW sites.

One solar storm or any one of about six Nations can knock out Satellite. How many connections need physically cut to block most of the Internet to Ireland. Not many. I was working in BBC in 1970s when NI was COMPLETELY cut off Telecoms/Communications from UK & Ireland for several hours. It could have been worse. There happened to be a single location were all critical cables passed under ONE manhole cover in the road. A "claymore" mine was thrown at a Police Landrover and landed on THAT manhole!

Bad stuff happens. Eventually and more than once.

martinsvi

watty, how did ham radio operators relieve the situations you mentioned in your past?

sure enough bad stuff will happen, there's no argument about that.. what I question is the ability for hams in Ireland (or anywhere else in Europe) to mobilize or coordinate large groups of people, rescue efforts or simple food supply chains. and I'm not pointing fingers at hams, I'm sure they would do good, the problem is - if as a ham I go out to my street and start knocking on everyones door saying something like - hello, I'm an amateur radio operator and I just received a message that we need to head south... they would probably tell me to f*** of..

martinedwards

true, but if you recieved a message to tell Mrs Murphy at no 12 that her wee son Sean was alive and safe in London because he found a Ham there and got word through, then you'd be carried shoulder high through the streets by her other 11 sons......

Popular Hardback

I don't imagine you would be directing any operations at all, far more likely you would be an additional voluntary radio operator providing assistance for local voluntary services. I would have thought it much more a case of amateur radio operators assisting, supplementing, providing, operating and maintaining additional local base stations and radio networks and operators for the use and assistance of local emergency services and voluntary groups and as directed and required by them.

Yes, some agencies have their own radios and base stations for normal day to day operating, but certainly would not have enough equipment stored away gathering dust on shelves to provide an emergency communications network when all power and phone is down. E.g. how would St. John's ambulance, Civil Defence, Red Cross, St. Vincent de Paul, Care of the aged etc., Contractors and farmers with useful machinery, and say any trained local first aiders all communicate and act in a co-ordinated effective fashion if all phone, cellphone, and power was down for a week or two due to storms/flooding/snow ? And many roads and bridges were washed away / impassable ?

Such people and agencies would not have the time to purchase, learn, set up, operate and maintain radio networks in an emergency, and it would be an ineffective use of their time and abilities if they were. A town/community hall, that's already providing food and shelter and issuing supplies, and acting as an overall base for all local voluntary agencies would have great use for an amateur radio station being set up there, and amateurs providing and maintaining additional mobile radio equipment for volunteers to use. Unlikely as it may sound, this scenario can and does happen in countries as sophisticated as the USA and Japan.

E.g. see section '7.5.3 Communications between Site and Co-ordination Centres' of the current Co. Cork Major Emergency Plan : http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/pdf/692549205.pdf

(Each county is required to have a current and up to date major emergency plan)

Also take a look at this : http://www.aren.ie/faq.html

martinsvi

that's a good document you have there. So that means hams really DO have an official role in disaster recovery. In that case why isn't it covered in exam syllabus?

I'm preparing for the exam, I'm trying to learn and cover as much aspects as I can yet I know nothing about this.. In couple of months time I might have a licence and equipment. I'm a young, fit lad who would be able to help to relieve emergencies but if this topic hadn't gone the way it did, I would most likely sit in my shack and weep over my shiny new mic how awful things are and how there's nothing I can do about it

watty

martinsvi wrote: »

watty, how did ham radio operators relieve the situations you mentioned in your past?

If as a ham I go out to my street and start knocking on everyones door saying something like - hello, I'm an amateur radio operator and I just received a message that we need to head south... they would probably tell me to f*** of..

No, that's not the Role. It would be providing communications for State Authorised Authorities usually ... Unless something VERY bad happens.

Garda / Ambulance / Fire etc have almost no non-infrastructure based communication (Tetra handsets can only do VERY short range person to person if the Infrastructure is down). AREN has at least one Base Station that can be deployed by trailer with no infrastructure. Only Military, Ballygireen "Shanwick" and some Coastguards have Shortwave Radio to communicate outside Ireland if normal Infrastructure fails.

A lot of the Amateur Repeaters have longer standby battery life in a power cut than most Mobile Masts. A Mobile Base Station can be 1kW to 10kW, an Amateur Repeater may be only 0.5W on receive and 15W to 25W on transmit. Some are networked by Radio link.

Some Mobile Masts have only 20 minutes or so UPS compared to maybe 4 to 10 days intermittent use of an Amateur Repeater. Generally a Mobile mast in Mayo will not operate if the Dublin based central infrastructure has failed, even for local calls!

A failure in the main data centre can "take out" an entire national Mobile network.


Just google <name of major disaster> and Ham Radio

Here is quick "Hit" http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9228945/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/t/ham-radio-operators-rescue-after-katrina/

martinsvi

I guess it works in ways I haven't even thought of... thanks, watty!

zenno

Just a question for you ham operators...

Regarding: November 2012.

A radio enthusiast from Castlederg in County Tyrone has been praised for saving the lives of hundreds of airline passengers, from his shed.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-20337368

I am trying to understand this 'ham radio' users experience and if it is true, and why if true he wouldn't comment and also why united airlines say they have no record of the event.

What's your take on this ?... Was this just a crazy Ham Operator, which i doubt, or was united airlines trying to cover-up the news ?. Was either 100% confirmed ?.

martinedwards

Nah, that was a spoof.

whether it was that bloke who made it up, or someone winding HIM up, I dunno, but it was discussed long & hard on several Ham radio Fora and the pilots said no way was it genuine as the frequencise are so different, and anyway the airlines had no record of it

zenno

martinedwards wrote: »

Nah, that was a spoof.

whether it was that bloke who made it up, or someone winding HIM up, I dunno, but it was discussed long & hard on several Ham radio Fora and the pilots said no way was it genuine as the frequencise are so different, and anyway the airlines had no record of it

Is there proof that it was a spoof ?, i haven't seen the proof yet.

The frequencies are all on the shortwave bands and maybe he had a transceiver to communicate on those aircraft frequencies, of which would be highly illegal to do so and stupid to transmit on these as well.

His setup looks professional, but is he ?. I'm sure if this guy had the right equipment he could easily communicate with cross atlantic aircraft, or make a conversion to the shortwave transmitter to do so.

Still, i find it hard to believe that this guy/licensed ham radio person with the setup he has would just make it up and take it as far as he did just to be discredited.

anyway the airlines had no record of it.

As they would always say. I don't think united airlines would like the news stories if this was true, so cover it up promptly ? who knows.

martinsvi

a mayday call in aviation happens only when plane is in immediate danger - if it's going down, if you will.. there can only be two reasons for these calls - either plane is in a state where it's not operational or flight crew is unable to perform their duties. you can't cover that up